Roman apologist Jimmy Akin
has an article on the dating of the book of Revelation, dating it before 70 A.D. Dating Revelation previous to 70 A.D. is all the rage these days, particularly with the rise of preterism. It would be very interesting to call Catholic Answers and ask Mr. Akin which Protestant sources he read to arrive at this view.
Very interesting indeed! Your point is well taken that Akin is acting like a Protestant by studying Scripture, historical background, context, and not depending on the Pope's infallible charism that can as claimed, "walk into the room and solve all difficulties and interpretation differences with "thus says the Lord".
ReplyDeleteThese that Akin goes over, are the same as the main arguments that
Kenneth Gentry
Gary DeMar
and
R. C. Sproul ( relying on Gentry and others)
use to say that Revelation was written before 70 AD.
That makes a lot of sense to me, from an internal evidence perspective of the book of Revelation. Partial Preterism makes a lot of sense with Matthew 23:36-24:1-3 and 15 and those points about Revelation.
But, from an external evidence perspective, it is a little weaker. (Irenaeus' quote that could mean either John "he was seen alive" during Domitian's reign or "it" (the Revelation" was seen at the end of Domitian's reign. )
Full Preterism is a heresy; but partial preterism is very compelling.
But DeMar seeing 2 Peter 3 as also 70 AD is nuts. That is clearly about the end of time and the second coming of Christ and the promise of the new heavens and new earth.